Half Lit
by irishbrogue
Summary: He was the only one who could have truly understood her.
1. Chapter 1

**HALF-LIT**

_This is a "test" chapter, so to speak. I wrote this a long time ago and have since decided to approach my Legolas/Eowyn story in a different way. I uploaded this in order to get ageneral reactionthough Imyselffeel that such a short snippet of the storyI'm planning to write can't allow anyone to already have a reaction, if you know what I mean.Still, comments of any kind (I really **want** to write a perfect piece on Legolas/Eowyn)would behighly appreciated._ _:D_

_By the way, this is in movie-verse, though I try to reconcile the books and the film as much as possible when I brainstorm. :)_

* * *

This was as she had first known him— 

She had been standing on the windswept terrace of Meduseld, and her uncle Theoden, the resurrected king of Rohan, was casting the Worm-tongued Grima from hall and realm.

"_Your leech-craft would have had me crawling on all fours like a beast!"_

There had been cries—of shock, of spite or of warning she had not been able to decide—from all who looked upon her liege and kin, possessed with wild and willful fury.

Her uncle had raised his sword, ready to hammer it down and smite Grima through and through. The snake had cowered, but the darkly-clad Man had come flying down the steps of Meduseld, thrown his arms about Theoden and prevented Grima's execution.

As Grima had clambered atop a horse and burst through the gates, returning to his true master, Theoden had whirled around to face the Man who'd stayed his sword-hand. The Lord of all Horse-lords had glared fiercely at the gaunt Ranger at that time, as if ready to strike this Man who had held him from his revenge.

She had thought of rushing down to Theoden's side, to cool his temper herself.

But at that moment, she felt _him_. Felt, as one feels the presence of unseen spirits lingering near, but this soul had indeed been near her, beside her, a spirit so close and intense that she could not have helped but be arrested by its presence.

"_Hail, Theoden King!"_ the Ranger then cried, and all at Edoras fell to their knees, as the Ranger himself did so. She, too, had bowed her head in reverence, as the awareness of _him_ sent a prickling feeling shooting through her skin. Before Theoden King had been able to respond, she had lifted her eyes, battling the weight of consciousness, to know what, or _who_, was the source of that fire…

She had not been able to see his face. But out of the corner of her eye she had glimpsed a tall, angular profile, and a head crowned with flaxen hair. The figure, too, had had its head bowed and a hand was upon its breast—she could not have had, as of yet, fathomed the significance of that strange gesture.

But still—and she had been certain of it, even at those very moments of first meeting—she had felt the very fire of his being. It was a subtle flame, she remembered, not one that was restrained, yet not one that was so easily released. It smoldered, just beneath his skin, and it simmered in his blood, and it shone, purely and powerfully, from the chasms of his spirit. And it was a fire, a flame, to her at once so exquisitely foreign and familiar that it both lured her and repelled her, in fear and in awe.

She had tried to further glimpse him, but then the question had come: _"Where is my son?"_

Love and duty to her uncle, her father, her lord and her king had assailed her. With hurried steps she had slipped behind the strange figure beside her (nay, she had not even noticed the Dwarf!) and had run to Theoden's side. It was her place, as shieldmaiden— sister-daughter—to tell him.

She could not have known that _his _own eyes had followed her path, or that he himself had perceived at those moments the great burning of her spirit. Yea, she had intrigued him even before she had first known him upon those cold stones of the Golden Hall.

But she would know—or would begin to know—now.


	2. Chapter 2

She had not expected him to be there, at that hour past midnight she considered solely her own.

Neither had she expected to find him in exactly the same place where she had first seen him, in the daylight hours, in what seemed ages, ago.

Nor had she expected him to, in one smooth and silent movement, turn and bow to her as if always knowing she would come—and as if she were indeed a princess worthy of the honor.

"M-my Lord—!" The words sputtered from her mouth as she managed a flustered obeisance. "Master Elf--I had thought you would be resting—…"

It was so banal, so obviously untrue, that she feared his reply..

Instead, she heard him say, "I had thought the same of you, my Lady."

Swallowing mounting curiosity, she prepared to offer some customary remark. But he spoke again: "Truth be told, I should have known better to think otherwise."

Now, he completely turned his back from the wide, moon-washed plains and faced her. Like a god, she would remember. Or perhaps truly one, for the starlight and moonlight seemed to combine with the torches from hall and village to reveal a smile playing on the corners of his mouth.

"Young warriors, "he said, "are always restless on the eve of battle."

"On the eve of—" Something in her stirred, or snapped, reacting to that slightest, slightest trace of patronization in his voice. _Young warriors--!_ He had spoken as if she were an eager, eager child. But she was not naïve, not unaware of what it _meant_—on _the eve of battle_—

And then she stopped. The indignation that rushed through her vanished as quickly as it had come. He had spoken_—he had spoken to her as if—_he had spoken to her_ as--_

He was now smiling, she saw. Smiling, inscrutably and almost admiringly, or maybe that, just like what she had heard, was only a trick of her imagination.

"Yea," he said, his voice a dark music, rich and secretive as the night. "In this hour perhaps you want to be alone." He bowed again, deeply, with a hand placed on his heart. "I take my leave." And he began moving towards the great doors of Meduseld, past her, past the sentries, who for their silence she could not fathom whether watching respectfully or asleep.

"Wait!"

Impulsively, she reached for him, and grasped half a leather vambrace and half a cold, pale hand. She stepped back immediately, jolted. "I—my Lord—forgive me—" It was not turning out to be an evening for her eloquence. "But _how-_-What do you mean?"

Her eyes met his, or else his eyes met hers. And again Eowyn felt _it_, as she had felt it just that same past afternoon. _A subtle flame, a spirit's fire, at once foreign, and familiar…_

But Legolas only looked at her, gazed steadily and deeply into her questioning, searching eyes, filling them with the memory of his own. "My Lady," he said again, this time barely above a whisper, and slipped away into the darkness of the Golden Hall.

There were a lot of things Eowyn had not expected that night, but could have always feared, always dreamed. But most of all, she had never expected this: that, in the strange and solemn Elf, a being far removed from anything she had ever known in her life, she would find someone who could so easily see, and had seen, into her soul.

And who, unlike the Lords Aragorn and Faramir, would know it as his own.


End file.
